I apologize in advance to the OP for derailing this post so blatantly...

It is odd how simliar our lives have been to shape our thoughts and behaviors.

The beatings started when I was 5. My perpetrator was a violent stepfather. He was ex-military and I don’t remember much else of him except for the fact that he was a very cruel man. My sister and I would be beaten for any number of reasons. If we neglected to do a chore or other biding, he would dole out the punishments, usually in some form such as writing the sentence ”I will not forget to do all of my chores before playing” 200 or so times. If we failed to complete the 200 sentences before the due date, we were beaten and the sentences were doubled, tripled, quadrupled….you get the point. This motherfucker was a sadist.

At some point, my ill-equipped mother had the decency to leave him. So, she married a sociopath. No, I’m not kidding you—a self-described sociopath. What’s fascinating about his dysfunction was that he would scream in my face, call me a liar-repeatedly- and accuse me of having ulterior motives all while he was embezzling money and having an affair with an unknown number of women.

As I mentioned before, when I was 16 I attended the funeral of my grandfather. Less than 1 month beforehand, my second stepfather (the sociopath) was released from a minimum security prison for his white-collar crime. Within a week of his homecoming he tore apart my room, empting dresser drawers and closets into a giant heap in the middle of the floor and then commanding that I clean it up. Why? He thought I might be doing drugs or worse, fornicating with my high school girlfriend. Well, I was fucking—but I was a good kid otherwise, no drugs, no cigarettes, no criminal activity. So about a month or two later, my grandpa dies. I hear this lady’s story and think: fuck him, fuck her, I’m going to do Me. I haven’t looked back since. I too only have a few close friends. What is freaky is that, until this moment, I have never analyzed the people I trust. My best friend: Father abandoned his family. Other very close friend: Father absent. My wife: Father died young and tragically.

Like you said, at this point it is too late for things to be different for you. Your viewpoints and positions have been shaped by the ”lessons” you have learned. I'm not apologetic either, except to the extent that I hope to be a better person today than I was yesterday. I am who I am, but I'm trying to be better is my weird motto.